Base defense on 2nd week

[silencer_pl]

It happened also on EU for me once. Does anyone know what is the cause of this? I know I sort of started the game few times, because I was fiddling with TFTDExtender graphics settings. I didn't even saved and haven't passed even the first month, when suddenly on my 4th attempt (every attempt was made after game being closed) on 8th of January I had a base attack from aquatoids. My last experience was base defense on 12th January in EU. The thing is, I didn't even spotted and shot down the initial UFO game sends at you.

[NKF]

Oh yes, it can happen indeed. It's possible the first ship that was scheduled was on a base attack mission and it succeeded. However it is a bit unusual that you did not spot anything. I suppose the small sonar isn't guaranteed to pick everything up. It's a bit unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility.

 

TFTDExtender may have unintentionally played a role in it as well.

 

I usually just restart the game if this happens in UFO if the large rockets haven't yet arrive. You're not going to do much against a superhuman cyberdisc with the equipment you start the game with.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

Strange that aliens know that there is a opposing force and thought that first mission would be more like research.

[Tycho]

I found an oversight in the programming that might explain this: When you start a new game, the part of the code that is responsible for resetting the XBASE.DAT file only resets 8 out of the 11 entries. If the first byte in an entry is set, the game will spawn a battleship to attack the base listed in the second byte. Since the second byte is always zero (if not properly set by the game), the first entry in the LOC.DAT file is targeted, which is usually your initial base.

[Maurice76]

I decided not to create a new topic on this, but I just ran into a weird bug which involves a base attack.

 

My current game has evolved till august and besides my main base, I have a number of Sonar Outposts (well, equipped with Transmission Resolvers by now) around the world, each equipped with a Barracuda. While the Triton of my main base was on its way to a downed Sub, a Dreadnought spawned, indicating it was going for a Floating Base Attack against one of my Sonar Outposts. Since it was undefended, I decided to just reload to a few hours earlier, hoping it wouldn't spawn (instead of going through the hassle of transferring everything and creating a new base right next to it - money isn't the issue at this point, it's just a hassle). It did spawn anyway, so I guess the AI had already marked the Outpost for an attack (which in its own right was strange, since I had intercepted all scout vessels that had entered its Transmission Resolver detection range, but that as an aside). I decided to reload and just dismantle the base manually.

 

Surprisingly, the Dreadnought still spawned, hell-bent on attacking that no longer existing Sonar Outpost. I chose to ignore it, since I don't have the firepower yet to send it to the bottom of the ocean and continued on that intercept of that downed USO somewhere in the Indian Ocean. While the Triton was on its way, the Dreadnought aimlessly wandered the globe, which I thought was funny, eventually ending up in the Mediterranean, where that Outpost was before I dismantled it. I completed the recovery of the downed USO, only to find the Dreadnought at the very same spot as my Triton when I returned to the GeoScope. But while I was wondering what it was doing there, the Dreadnought - despite saying it was on a FBA in the Mediterranean - made a straight run for my main base and destroyed it right away, because all Soldiers from my main base were on the Triton. And with the base gone, the Triton vanished as well.

 

I guess the game flunked out because the Outpost was gone before it spawned the Dreadnought and then flunked out again when I returned from the battle at the downed USO, setting it to attack my main base instead.

[silencer_pl]

That is a good scenario to tell the OpenXcom guys providing you have still the saves.

[Maurice76]

That is a good scenario to tell the OpenXcom guys providing you have still the saves.

 

Maybe, I will check. I usually make 4 GeoScope savegames to cover a month, 1 per week. I think I didn't overwrite it yet as august has been a busy month, reached 8k+ score . I'll make sure to set it aside; any idea where I can upload it if I still have it? I'll also see if I can reproduce it.

 

Edit: unfortunately, the savegame that should cover it has already been overwritten . The odds of stumbling into it again is very small, as it requires a savegame a short period before a Dreadnought spawns as well as a mission before the Dreadnought is done wandering about.